Witchtown

by Cory Putman Oakes

  “You like the moving around,” I said, and I couldn’t believe I was seeing that for the first time. All these years—​she had been enjoying herself. While I had just been waiting for it to be over. “You like how we’ve been living all these years.”

  “What’s wrong with the way we’ve been living, Macie?”

  “Everything. Everything is wrong with it—”

  She waved me off.

  “Fine. You got me. You’re right. The idea of settling down, being stuck in one spot—​forever. It doesn’t appeal to me. I wouldn’t want it. And even if I did, it would never be here. Witchtown?” she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it here.”

  “Well I do.”

  “Do you?” came a condescending, slurred voice.

  It wasn’t my mother; Percy had reappeared. His baggy sweater vest hung crookedly on his bony shoulders, and he seemed to have lost a shoe. I hadn’t realized he was drunk before, but it was more than obvious now. He was holding on to the door frame for support and staring at me in a rather confused way. When he pointed at me, his finger shook.

  “First thing you need to learn about this town, Missy. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Thank you, Percy.” My mother smiled, as though he had just put the perfect cap on her argument.

  “It was a stupid idea,” Percy muttered, stumbling into the room and lurching to the table, where he fell into the chair he had vacated a few minutes earlier. He picked up his fork and started jabbing aimlessly at the cake. “Witchtopia my ass. It’d be worth more if we burned it to the ground.”

  I rolled my eyes at Percy’s drunken rant, but my mother crossed back to the table and sat in the chair next to him.

  “What do you mean by that, Percy dear?” she asked him sweetly, prying the fork from his shaky fingers and feeding him the minuscule amount that was still stuck on the prongs.

  Percy swallowed and smiled idiotically at her.

  “Insurance. Reginald Harris was in insurance, remember? This place is insured up to high hell. Especially for fires. Harris was always so paranoid about that.”

  He burped, and looked vaguely startled at the noise.

  My mother loaded up the fork with another bite of cake.

  “You mean, if there were to be an accident, damage of some kind, the insurance companies would have to pay?”

  “Brooke would get a big fat check,” Percy blurted, eating off the fork my mother held up for him. “It would solve all her problems, I keep telling her. But she won’t do it. Stupid woman. Never listens to me . . .”

  “Thank you, Percy.”

  He smiled, and then put his head down on the table.

  My mother gave me a meaningful look, and I felt my insides tighten into knots.

  “No,” I said, before she could say anything. “No.”

  “It’s perfect,” my mother said, staring down at the table. I could practically see the thoughts racing around inside her head. “An accident would scare off the investors. As long as it’s big enough. We’d have to make sure the fire was big enough.”

  “No,” I said again.

  “Then we’d just have to wait for the insurance money to go into the town account. Once it’s there we grab it and go. Easy. Hardly any work at all.”

  “We’re not doing this,” I said. “Listen to yourself. You’re talking about burning down the town.”

  “So?”

  “So?” I repeated in disbelief. “That’s crazy. People would get hurt. Maybe die. We don’t do that!”

  “For this much money, Macie, we have to be willing to take a few risks.”

  “Not with people’s lives!” I exclaimed.

  My mother stared at me, and I could sense the switch flipping again—​to a setting I knew all too well. She stood up and came around the table until she loomed over me, and I felt myself shrinking. Her face was thunderous. She glared at me, beautiful and terrible. When she spoke, her voice was scarcely audible, and yet it was the only thing in the world I could hear.

  “You will do this, Macie. You will do exactly what I say.”

  “I won’t,” I said, but I was shaking so badly my teeth were chattering.

  My mother smirked at me.

  “Do you really think you have a choice? Remember what happened the last time you tried to defy me.”

  I blinked away an image of Rafe, on his knees.

  “You’ve got nothing to hold over me this time,” I told her. “Not if you’re going to burn down the town anyway.”

  “Oh, but I do, Macie,” she said, and then she pointed, right to my moonstone. “So you like this town? You think they like you? I wonder what would happen if they knew there was a Void in their midst.”

  I swallowed. She wouldn’t.

  My mother put her hands on my shoulders. I wanted to shrink from her touch, but I couldn’t move.

  “It’s a simple choice,” she said, her voice switching back to its usual calm. “You can shut your mouth, get with the program, and help me, so we can both walk away with a lot of money. Or, you can defy me. But let me be very clear what will happen to you then, Macie.”

  She put a finger under my chin, making extra sure that I was looking her right in the eye.

  “I swear—​with Laverna as my witness, I swear—​that if you get in my way this time, I will set you adrift. I will leave you here, in the ruins of the town you love, and everyone will be able to see you for exactly what you are. We’ll just see how long it takes them to send you packing. Right after they brand that pretty little cheek of yours.”

  She slapped me, lightly, on my left cheek. Then she reached down and tugged on the chain of the moonstone.

  “This necklace is the only thing preventing them from seeing the truth. I gave it to you, and I can take it away. Just think about that.”

  She let go of me and stepped aside so suddenly that I fell forward. Then she walked into her bedroom, alone, leaving Percy snoring into his folded arms and me gasping for breath, clutching the side of the table.

  I could not stay in this apartment for another second.

  I reeled toward the front door. I was so numb it took me three tries to turn the knob. Once I got it open I ran until I was in the center of the town square. I leaned heavily against the altar, and slumped as I felt cool air fill my lungs.

  When I had gotten my breath, I let go of the altar and stood back to find the Witchtown motto staring me in the face:

  To grow in knowledge

  To live in harmony

  To harm none

  The motto had annoyed me on the night of my initiation. It still kind of did. It was hopelessly idealistic. An aspiration, a dream. But it was also more than that. I’m not sure when I first started seeing it that way. I’m not sure it mattered. It was as clear to me now as the words carved into the marble.

  Witchtown was a dream. An impossible, hopelessly optimistic dream.

  A dream that needed to be protected.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I couldn’t go home. So I headed for the Depot, the only place in Witchtown that would have me.

  For now, I thought, as I trudged toward it. Once the mayor and everybody else finds out you’re a Void, there will be no place left for you in this world.

  I fought back the images from my old nightmares; the brand coming toward me, the sound of my screaming as the hot metal touched my cheek, the smell of burnt skin . . .

  I shook my head. Really, that was the best scenario I could hope for, now that Kellen knew everything. The absence of police cars in the square right now made me think he hadn’t told anybody yet. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

  I had been a Void forever, but I don’t think I had ever felt truly powerless until that moment.

  “Hello, dear.”

  I jumped. Gayle was standing at the door of the Depot.

  I had totally forgotten I was supposed to meet her tonight.

  She looked different outside the bakery. No aprons or flour smears or hairnets
. Her muscular arms were hidden beneath a loose, flowing tunic top and her gray-white hair was free of its tight bun, flowing in loose waves to her shoulders. Her smile was the same, though. Even in the dim light coming from the street lamp, I could still make out her grandmotherly, all-knowing smile.

  But once she got a good look at my face, her face fell into a concerned frown.

  “Dark thoughts this evening?”

  “You could say that.” I dug the key out of my pocket and let us both inside.

  She walked in without hesitation and headed straight for the light switch. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that,” she said, as she flipped on the lights. “Any sign of Bradley?”

  Gayle’s eyes swept the ceiling, searching for the poltergeist. We both waited expectantly, but the surly ghost did not materialize.

  “Did you know him when he was alive?” I asked.

  “A bit,” Gayle said vaguely, turning around to take in the entire room. “So this is your place! How exciting!”

  I cringed at the mess of boxes, packing materials, and scattered merchandise all over the floor. I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up.

  “I’m still getting things organized,” I said lamely, and then I remembered my manners. “Um, can I get you some water? There’s a sink upstairs . . .”

  I trailed off, remembering the half-eaten cake back at the apartment.

  Gayle sat down on one of the stools in front of the burnt counter and patted the empty one next to her.

  “I don’t need anything. But I think you might. What can I help you with, Macie?”

  I sat down heavily on the offered stool. Gayle’s kindness made me want to cry. I didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t even begin to think of how to explain to her what was wrong. At this point, it would probably have been easier to tell her what was right.

  Which was pretty much nothing.

  When I didn’t respond, she scooted her stool directly in front of mine and looked me right in the face. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me intently, leaving no part of my face unexamined. I could imagine feeling very uncomfortable with anyone else doing that, but not Gayle. Her no-nonsense expression was so sincere, I found it impossible to do anything but sit there and let her scrutinize my too-big nose, my freckles, and my jagged haircut.

  It was when she got to my haircut that her expression brightened.

  “Well, let’s start with the obvious. How about I even that out for you?”

  My hands flew self-consciously to my shorn locks. So one side was longer than the other. I knew it.

  “You do hair?” I asked.

  “I cut Maire’s all the time,” she said, standing up, and then she searched behind the counter until she came up with a pair of scissors. “These will do.”

  Gayle motioned with her fingers for me to turn around on my stool. While I did, she fished a large piece of tissue paper out of a nearby box of candles and draped it around my shoulders, like a smock. She combed my hair briefly with her fingers, and then I started to hear the brisk snip snip of the scissors.

  “I’m curious what you did to pacify Bradley,” she said conversationally.

  “I made a deal with him.”

  “Really?” Gayle sounded surprised. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you manage to talk to him? I haven’t been able to get a word in edgewise since he died. Not since he went all whispery and firey.”

  “Talya trapped him,” I answered.

  “Really?” Gayle said again. “Talya, the girl who works in the Archives?”

  “Yeah. She and Kellen have been helping me out with the Depot.”

  “Well, I approve of your choice of friends,” she said, and I could feel her pull slightly on two strands of hair on the opposite sides of my head, checking for evenness. The snip snipping resumed. “Talya I don’t know well yet, but she seems to have a nice way about her. And I’ve been Kellen’s mentor ever since he got to Witchtown. A very impressive young witch, that one.”

  “Yes,” I said noncommittally. I didn’t feel like dwelling on the fact that probably neither Talya nor Kellen was speaking to me at the moment. So instead, I asked her the question I had been dying to ask Bradley at our last encounter: “Do you know how the first Depot fire started? The one where Bradley and Stan died?”

  I looked cautiously around the Depot, trying not to move my head too much and mess up my haircut. It felt wrong to talk about someone who could very well be listening, even if I wasn’t getting that telltale prickly sensation.

  “I don’t know,” Gayle answered. “I suppose you could always ask Bradley, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Gayle hesitated: the snip snip of the scissors stopped.

  “It’s not always wise to ask people about their past,” she said. “Especially in Witchtown. We’re all misfits here. Refugees from the real world. I mean, we live behind walls for pity’s sake!”

  She came around to the left side of my stool.

  “Whatever we did before, wherever we came from, we’re here now,” she said, and out of the corner of my eye I could see her frowning at the left side of my head as she raised the scissors to trim a little bit more. “We all have our secrets and our oddities and our embarrassing stories. Witchtown lets you embrace them, to let them all hang out. It’s a gift this place gives you.”

  She paused. The sound of the scissors stopped. She walked in front of my stool and looked me right in the eye again.

  “This town is very special to me, Macie. I would never let anybody hurt it.”

  My breath caught in my throat; I did not blink.

  “Neither would I,” I told her, meaning every word.

  “Good.”

  Gayle made one last snip, then stepped back to admire her work.

  “There. If only we had a mirror.”

  “I trust you,” I said, running my fingers through my newly evened-out locks. They felt slightly shorter than they had been, but also less choppy.

  Gail set the scissors on the counter and turned to face me, a serious expression on her face.

  “Whatever it is that’s troubling you, Macie—​you don’t have to tell me. But I think you ought to tell Kellen and Talya. That’s my advice. And the giving of good advice has always been my greatest talent, aside from baking.”

  “Everybody listens to you?” I asked, believing it.

  “Mostly. I’m still working on Brooke . . .”

  “What do you tell her?”

  “Mostly that she needs to learn how to delegate. She’s been politely ignoring me for years, but I’ll get through eventually. I always do.”

  I nodded, and stared down at my feet. Suddenly, all I could see was Kellen’s face after I had spat out the whole story of Rafe, and of why my mother and I were really here.

  I don’t think I like you very much.

  “Talk to them,” Gayle said again, drawing my attention off the floor. “Your friends will see you through this. Whatever this is.”

  I looked at her. I was tempted, despite her warning, to ask what she was doing in Witchtown. She didn’t seem like a misfit to me; what was she running from in the real world?

  But before I could think of a way to ask her that, Bradley materialized behind her. He had the scissors Gayle had just used, and a wicked gleam in his eye. For a split second, I thought he was going to stab her, and I practically fell off my stool.

  But then he winked at me. And he reached for a chunk of the baker’s shoulder-length curls.

  I opened my mouth to warn her, but before I could, Gayle rolled her eyes.

  “Bradley!” she snapped, not even bothering to turn around. “Don’t even think about it!”

  To my surprise, Bradley immediately dropped the scissors and backed up.

  “Yes ma’am,” he mumbled, and slinked back into the shadows, like a puppy caught chewing on something he wasn’t supposed to.

  Apparently even Bradley was smart enough to listen to Gayle.

  My first order of busines
s the next morning was to invite Talya over. To my immense relief, she came.

  It was much easier to tell her everything than it had been to tell Kellen. I don’t know if that was because it’s easier to break the rules the second time you do it, or because her dark eyes were a lot less judgey and a lot less distracting than Kellen’s.

  Or, it could have been that she already knew.

  She let me cough it all up, let me spill my guts all over the Depot floor. And when I was done, she smiled and leaned back casually against the counter. We were sitting on the stools that Gayle and I had sat on the night before.

  “I saw you at the mayor’s office that night, remember?” she said, with a slight smile. “I suspected you might be a thief then, and I got confirmation when I read your mom at Odin’s Tavern after the funeral. I didn’t see anything in her head about the burning-down-the-town—”

  “She hadn’t thought of it yet,” I cut in.

  “—​but I figured you must have some plan in mind for Witchtown, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Thanks for finally telling me, though.”

  “Why did you cover for me?” I asked. “When the mayor asked who had been prowling around her office. I’ve been dying to know.”

  Talya shrugged. “You covered for me, that day in the square. I had a feeling about you. Like, maybe we could be friends. You kept my secret. Plus,” she said as she wrinkled her nose, “I never liked Lois. She was the main one who spread the rumor about me being a Void.”

  I nodded, enjoying the feeling of getting several of the outstanding questions in my head answered at the same time.

  “You have no idea what it’s like, Macie,” Talya continued, “seeing people the way that I do. So you’re a thief? That’s not the worst thing I’ve seen, not by a long shot. Everyone has secrets. You should see the things most people are hiding . . .”

  Her face plummeted into a frown. And suddenly, I had to hand it to Talya. I wouldn’t have blamed her at all if her unwelcome gift had turned her into a dark, warped soul. She might be odd, maybe even a little dark at times, but she was definitely not warped.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come today,” I said. “After what I did—”